Unibright Diaries — Asset Lifecycle Template
More recently, in our blog we covered the Batch Tracing Template. The main reason of a batch tracing implementation is to guarantee safety and reliability in the food supply chain. The Batch Tracing Template defines a basic integration workflow which can be customized visually. All that’s needed are the Smart Contracts for a specific blockchain, which are then generated automatically through the Framework.
Now we move onto the another template which will be offered through the Unibright Framework; The Asset Lifecycle Template. Within any regulated industry that offers complex products (e.g. airline industry, luxury goods, pharmaceuticals etc.), these products are comprised of thousands of different parts and therefore it is crucial to know the provenance of such parts. This is in order to assure that they have the right specifications and that they are not counterfeit. In addition, many of these parts are so-called “tracked items”. Not only their provenance, but the entire maintenance history of these parts needs to be transparent.
Today, the participants in an asset’s lifecycle each have their own disparate systems for managing assets. Consequently, it’s quite difficult to establish and maintain a single version of the truth when looking at that asset’s entire lifecycle. Often, these records can be incomplete or still non-digitized, and communication between the different participants is often conducted on paper, through the email, or even verbally over the phone. The lack of standardization leads to limited traceability and the cost for compliance, can be very high.
Imagine if all the participants submitted a transcript of the transactions into a purpose-specific, distributed ledger, to which only authorized participants would have access.
The manufacturer of the product would initially start the blockchain for the asset, and each participant would add relevant information to it. Distributors would let the participants within the chain know that the asset was transported from point A to point B, while the system operator would register other characteristics about the parts which would be used for the product’s making (e.g. if the final manufacturer is a luxury bag brand, then information about the leather’s source and temperature throughout the transport). Using the blockchain for this asset management scenario would give you a verifiable, traceable, and trustworthy history of the asset’s lifecycle in real-time. Each individual participant in the chain still has the features and benefits of their own business applications to run their business.
As a result the potential benefits of the blockchain for the participants would be:
- Improved data quality through minimized need for manual data entry by the various participants. Manual entry is prone to errors.
- Eliminate the purchase of duplicate equipment.
- A single, traceable record of products’/parts’ serial numbers.
- Complete and more accurate maintenance history in some applicable use-cases (e.g. aircraft, automobiles)
- Deter theft and fraud with increased audit trail accountability.
- Reduced cost for compliance where applicable. (e.g. automobiles, Pharma, buildings)
There is no doubt that embarking on the asset management journey can be a challenging undertaking. Most organizations find that they have much of the information required but that it exists in different places and cannot be easily accessed in a unified fashion. In that regard, asset lifecycle management can be as much an organizational task as an investigation. The many upsides of conceiving an asset management solution make it well worth the time investment. The Asset Lifecycle Template allows organisations not only to embark their asset management data onto blockchains, but also brings efficiency, interoperability between different players, ease-of-use, unity of data, and security.
Companies, service providers, manufacturers, and regulators all need to work together in order to have more reliable and efficient offerings. We all need to work together and to share information which further needs to be integrated with the Blockchain. There are still several challenges to overcome when it comes to implementing and fully utilizing blockchain for the right reasons. With that said we at Unibright are prepared to push the boundary, patiently work and improve our product, and help those in need of blockchain integration within their existing IT systems.
Below, you can find an examples of how the Asset Lifecycle Template can be used in the real world.
Aircraft Production History
For presenting a real-world example, imagine the lifecylce of an airplane. It is being built, sold to an airline, being inspected, perhaps has some incidents happening, being sold to another airline and so on. All of these events are of interest to different actors in the lifecycle of the airplane.
The Unibright conformant smart contracts generated for this business case enables the user to keep track of ownership transferals, maintenance and repair history, and logs special events like damages or refurbishments in the complex lifecycle of an aircraft production. For all parties getting in touch with the final product (e.g. the airline using the aircraft to offer a specific flight) the safety and reliability of the involved aircraft is traceable in a trustworthy environment.
Let’s consider three people representing different roles, all interacting with the asset:
- Nicholas works in the buying department of a big airline company, and has to decide whether he should buy an airplane from an insolvent competitor. He wants to know as much as possible about the history of the airplane before making a decision.
- Dorothea works for a regulatory authority, granting the approval for airplanes to be used in public transfer. Besides her unannounced random checks, she would like to have a better view on any airplane changing ownership or facing an unplanned inspection.
- Jeff wants to decide on a holiday flight and is looking for an airline that can provide detailed information about the specific airplane which will be used for Jeff’s flight. He is also willing to pay a few bucks more if he is provided with this information, because Jeff likes to know that his decisions are safe.
Now, considering all three parties we can see that several parties need to access information on an asset gathered over years and the data has to be safe from manipulation. All events in the lifecycle of the airplane such as the owner change, planned and unplanned inspections, number of flights and covered distance should be saved and trackable. A smart contract in a public blockchain is the perfect way to gather and store information over a long period of time, and guarantee availability, immutability, and independence from any intermediary.
The involved airline companies can all rely on the technical interfaces provided with the Asset Lifecycle Template. The integration into the individual systems of each party can be established by defining suitable workflows based on the template by using the Unibright Workflow Designer. The Unibright conformant smart contracts can be published into a public blockchain by the Unibright Contract Lifecycle Manager, and are connected to the individual IT systems by the Unibright Connector. The current state of the process can be monitored any time with the Unibright Explorer and can be presented to the public.
Nicholas, Dorothea, and Jeff are able to keep track of ownership transferals, maintenance ,and repair history in the complex lifecycle of an aircraft. For all parties getting in touch with the final product the safety and reliability of the involved aircraft is traceable in a trustworthy environment thanks to blockchain based business integration!
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